I believe the word האם also makes it clearer.

Yes, Yonatan is right. In every day speech I would say "אבא בא?", without "האם". The question mark/intonation that makes the difference. "האם" is more formal.

dad is coming= a fact=אבא בא is dad coming= a question = ?אבא בא

Looks like it. Cool that the two language's vocab are so similar, especially since I am already learning Arabic!

Yes (: But in every day speech I would say "אבא בא?", without "האם". The question mark/intonation that makes the difference. "האם" is more formal.

i thought about the same thing ... i think it's the same

Unfortunatly, hebrew doesn't have "real" vowels to guide you while reading. There are letters that may, sometimes, be "vowels". A ו (Vav) in the middle of a word may indicate an /o/ or /u/ sound. For instance - גורם (noun - cause, verb - cause/s) is pronounced /gorem/ - the Vav stands for the O. Hanukkah is חנוכה - the Vav stands for the U. The letter י (Yud/Yod) in a middle of a word may indicate an /ee/ sound. For example - אישה (a woman) is pronounced /eesha/ - the Yud/Yod stands for the /ee/. However, sometimes you should just guess (or actually, memorize) - like in האם. Hebrew is an abjad - it's more about consonants, not "real" vowels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abjad

Duolingo does not show the Nikud-the vowels in Hebrew. with time, you learn how to pronounce the word without it. if you want to learn more here is an Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtQLkguB0tw

Exactly :)

Learning the alphabet might help ofc, although for this specific problem there aren't many rules, you usually have to understand the word from context. Here, for example, the only vowels with rules are the Bets (ב) in אבא בא. There's an Aleph (א) following, so they have to be pronounced as 'Ba'. As for the rest - you're gonna have to memorize :)

Yeah learning the alphabet gives you a better understanding. But some vowels do change or don't matter sometimes. Like one vowel makes an "ih" sound but other times its silent.

in Hebrew there only three times-past, present and future. you can say it's a question in both continuous and simple present.

If you are confused the האם for a tense, take a look at what I wrote to JanetCaterina. האם is only a question word. In Hebrew, there is only one present tense for both present simple and progressive. "comes" and "coming".

i am hebrew native speaker, and i didn't got the answer myself yet. Duolingo is better, because he has the text aligen almost without mistakes, but most of the websites are not so good. i recommend putting the hebrew part in a new line, or between two marks like: (hebrew)\n עברית

in this case, it would be the same. but: your dad is coming: אבא שלך מגיע someone's dad is coming: אבא של מישהו מגיע

Very close to what nirc2 said - "?האם אבא הגיע" or "?אבא הגיע"

Ha'im is a question word that you put before a yes/no question. Let's take the declaration אבא בא (dad is coming), and make a yes/no question of it (is dad coming?). For this, we would add האם before אבא בא, and a question mark at the end of the sentence - האם אבא בא? (is dad coming?). When saying this phrase, we would obviously use an intonation of a question. Another example - let's take the declaration "החדר קטן" (ha'kheder katan, the room is small), and make a yes/no question out of it (is the room small?). Again - האם, ?, and intonation. האם החדר קטן? yes or no. כן או לא. *Note:*** in every day speech and writing, we would not use האם at all. Only a question mark while writing, and an intonation of a question while speaking. האם אבא בא? will turn into אבא בא?. (lalala computer don't mess up my Hebrew and English pleassseee). האם החדר קטן? will turn into החדר קטן?.

ha'im is the question word. "is dad coming"="האם אבא בא"

the ' means you read the I in the word hai'm like ee in the word "cheese". the word has two parts- ha + im. usually, when we(Israelis) teach Hebrew, we teach with nikkud, that tells you how to read the word.

Windows + Spacebar.

If you've got them both activated, then (theoretically) you can set them to different hotkeys, and switch back and forth by pressing the appropriate key combination. I say theoretically because, for whatever reason, my hotkeys refuse to stay bound.

Or, default is [Ctrl]+[Shift] to cycle through all of your activated keyboards.

me :)

me :)

No difference. That's the same letter. There are a couple of Hebrew letters which have different appearance when written at the end of the word

I think you could translate it to "is it.. (?)" as in the beginning of a question in english. That's the use for האם (and not האמ, mind you, as the 'מ' is one of the letters who have a final form - meaning they appear differently when they come at the end of the word :) )

"האם" is a question word that just tells you that the sentence following it is a question and not a statement. There were no question marks in ancient Hebrew. It can be translated to "is, are, do, does" in English.

well ה is a letter as well as the indefinite article 'the'. That would be like saying the letter 'i' is always a word to refer to oneself when it is also a letter in numerous words.

I would transliterate it: "ha'im abba ba?" Which is what the recording is saying. ( Well, the recording really is not doing the glottal stop with א. It is just saying "haim".)